Soaring (Flashfic challenge 36: I Miss My Sky)

[keiko-kirin.livejournal.com]

Title: Soaring
Author: keiko_kirin
Word count: 281
Concrit?: yes
Rating: G
Summary: Sometimes Yunho touches the sky.


Soaring.

Sometimes the stage is a rocky slope like the Grand Canyon. Ready to be merciless at the first misstep, the first missed note. And sometimes the stage is nothing but clouds and the roar of air, and Yunho is soaring.

Sometimes they're not all soaring together, and afterwards they'll dissect the reasons why in private, in blocks of shorthand conversation, an obscure language developed over the years.

But sometimes when Yunho touches the sky and the stage dissolves into clouds beneath his feet, the others are right there with him and they are all soaring. Birds for "Love in the Ice." Fighter jets for "Rising Sun."

They take to the air and there is no formation they can't complete. They know this route well: the landscape of the arena, the shining faces in the sea of red, the swirling dragons of cameras and lights circling to attack or protect -- hard to tell the difference, as is the way with dragons, or so Yunho's read.

Grounded.

The high lasts until the exhaustion tackles him, and usually it's not until they're in the van that the loss settles in. Yunho feels it in his chest and the base of his spine: the release of a weight that should be welcome, should be a relief. Instead, it's an absence, numb, empty.

On the nights when they have soared together, Yunho thinks they feel the absence together, too. The jokes unravel slowly in quieter tones. Everyone sits farther apart and inches closer until they touch their neighbor. The emptiness becomes silent, unacknowledged awe: they did it again. They sang for the heavens and danced on clouds.

And Yunho knows they will do it again.